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Kuwait’s trial by fire observed from space

By JON TRUX

Saddam Hussein’s vengeance as he withdrew his forces from Kuwait has
been recorded for posterity from space. The Earth Observation Satellite
Corporation, which operates the Landsat satellites, has released these infrared
images showing the extent of the world’s worst act of ecoterrorism.

The first image shows Kuwait on 6 January 1991, two weeks before the
Gulf War began. The dark smudge to the south of Kuwait City is the Greater
Burgan oilfield, the country’s main oil-producing region. In February, as
Saddam Hussein’s troops pulled out of Kuwait, they fired more than 600 wells.

The central image, taken two months later, shows the oilwells alight.
Because Landsat’s thermal infrared channel registers heat rather than light,
it was able to record individual fires beneath the cloud of dense, greasy
smoke. The bright red lights are burning wells. The fires are concentrated
in two areas, the Al-Maqwa (top) and Al-Ahmadi oilfields.

In the final image, taken at the end of October, almost all the fires
have been extinguished. Only three or four red spots remain. The smaller
bright spots are heat given off by heavy machinery. The Burgan oilfield
and a vast area of desert to the southeast are black with soot. A week later,
all the fires were out – just nine months after the blaze was started and
long before anyone had dreamt possible.